


I Got Memories on Tap

by mosylu



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Bartender AU, Caitlin has a Past, F/M, and she's not telling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-25
Updated: 2021-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-15 21:20:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29690115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mosylu/pseuds/mosylu
Summary: On his way to interview for his dream job, Cisco discovers that his favorite bartender has some surprising secrets.
Relationships: Cisco Ramon/Caitlin Snow
Kudos: 18





	I Got Memories on Tap

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ciscoscaitlin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ciscoscaitlin/gifts).



> Written for the prompt "sit your ass back down and talk to me."

The bar on the corner was kind of a dive, but at 10-something in the morning, it wasn't too bad. Plus they had wifi, and depending on who was behind the bar, Cisco could usually nurse a bowl of free bar mix and a Roy Rogers while he looked for jobs online for several hours, and maybe a beer when he was done for the day. It was cheaper than Starbucks, and closer to his place, too.

When he walked through the door, he struck gold. It was Caitlin behind the bar. She was his favorite bartender, the one he liked talking to the best because she could usually hold up her end of a scientific conversation. Plus she refilled his soda without charging and had once given him free beers for a week after he'd fixed the overhead sound system when the cheap-shit owner wouldn't spring for a real repairman. 

She looked extra-tough today, black tank top, heavy eyeliner, dark lipstick. Unlike the other bartenders, she didn't have any tattoos or piercings, but he'd personally seen her smash a drunk's face into her bar and then kick him out without changing expression.

Sometimes she smiled at him, though.

"You look sharp," she observed, plucking a glass off the shelf and reaching for the bottle of grenadine.

She was used to seeing him in geeky t-shirts, hoodies, and cords. "Interview," he said, tugging his sport coat straight and checking the stool before sitting down. The last thing he wanted was a mysterious stain on his only dress pants. "No drink today, I gotta catch the bus in ten minutes."

She put away the glass and the syrup, and arched a brow at his laptop, which he had parked in its usual place on the bar.

"I need to figure out how to tie a tie," he explained, fishing said article out of his pants pocket and holding it up. "Last time I wore one, it was a clip-on."

She looked around the bar, which was dead empty except for him, and then reached out and shut the lid of the laptop, which he'd just opened. "Forget that. I'll do it."

"Wow, really? Thanks!"

She rolled her eyes, coming around the bar. "Yes, really. Give it."

He held out the tie, expecting her to tie it loosely and hand it over so he could drop it over his head. Instead, she stepped up to where he sat on the stool, plucking the tie from his hand. 

"Flip up your collar," she ordered, and after a moment of surprise, he did. She looped the strip of fabric around his neck and adjusted the length, brow furrowed in concentration.

This close, he could see the crisp line of her eyeliner and smell the faint vanilla scent of lotion, overlaid with the sharp bite of hand sanitizer. He'd noticed that she was a demon about washing and sanitizing her hands. Maybe she was something of a germaphobe, which begged the question of why she was working in such a grungy hole. 

God, she had pretty eyes.

Cisco had done enough time in the service industry himself that he knew the unspoken rule: friendly wasn't the same as friends. He'd managed to keep that in mind for the months he'd been coming in here. He was having a really hard time remembering that right now, though. 

"Chin up," she murmured.

He lifted it, focusing his eyes over her head at the sputtering neon Coors Light sign on the wall. "Where'd you learn how to do this?"

"My fiance," she said, hands busy at his throat. "He hated wearing ties and he could never manage to tie them on his own."

"Fiance? You're engaged?" She'd never worn a ring. Not once. Not even when it probably would have saved her some of the come-ons he'd overheard.

Her hands hesitated. Then she gave his tie a tug and said, "No," like slamming a door between them. She stepped back. "You're all done."

He flipped his collar back down and ran his hand over his tie. It felt right, crisp and smooth, the knot snug without being strangulating, the bottom edges aligned perfectly. 

"Thanks," he said brightly, trying to gain distance from the topic of her mysterious not-fiance. "How do I look? Professional? Do I scream 'hire me, please, I'll be the best damn engineer you've ever seen'? Or is it more like, 'if you give this pitiful schmuck a job, you'll live to regret it'?"

She propped her hands on her hips and gave him a once-over. "Top five at least," she said finally, and went back around the bar.

He felt a smile spread across his face. "Okay," he said, shoving his laptop into his bag. "Time to go hang out at the bus stop, because if I miss it, today of all days, I just might throw myself in front of a train."

"Sit your ass back down and talk to me," she commanded. 

He blinked. Even with her hard shell, she rarely swore. "But the bus." There were only a couple of windows high up against the ceiling. No way he'd be able to see it coming.

"I'll tell you when the bus is coming down the street. I can see it turn the corner on the security cams."

When he shifted uncertainly, looking at the door, she leveled a look at him. "You're a bundle of nerves, and that won't do you any good going into this interview. Sit."

He opened his mouth to pshaw that, then paused. He was a bundle of nerves. And he'd blown interviews before by babbling and going blank. Besides, he really liked talking to Caitlin.

He sat down, settling the bag on the bar in front of him.

She picked up a spray bottle of cleaner and sprayed down the bar. "Tell me about this job." Squirt, squirt, squirt.

"It's at PalmerTech. R&D. Basically my dream job."

Her hand paused, and then she continued cleaning. Squirt, squirt. "It's a good company," she said.

"Yeah! Yeah, their work on robotics is so - " He flailed his hands, unable to express the coolness in words. "And Ray Palmer? If he's half as awesome as he is in the press, I'll be damn lucky. Like, I've heard he actually does a lot himself. Can you imagine building stuff next to Ray Palmer? I just hope he's nice."

She picked up a bar towel and wiped down the bar. "He's a very rare specimen. Exactly what he seems."

Cisco blinked. "Uh, have you actually - ?"

"Met him? Yes." She scrubbed at a sticky spot next to the soda gun, her face giving nothing away.

His jaw dropped. "When?" 

"When I worked for Mercury Labs."

"You worked for Mercury Labs?" If his jaw dropped any further, he'd dislocate something. "As what?"

"Their research division. I was a bioethicist and a geneticist."

If she'd said she was a comic-book supervillain, he couldn't have been more shocked. "A _what?"_ Then "Was?"

She glanced at the security feeds behind the bar and said, "Bus," very calmly.

"But - wait - when was that?"

"Before." She turned her back and picked up a clipboard. "You're going to miss your bus."

He grabbed his laptop bag and bolted, arriving at the stop a few doors down from the bar just time for the bus to roll up, belching diesel fumes. 

As he settled in his seat, the bar went past his window. He watched it recede into the distance, boxy and grubby and nowhere that anyone would choose to go if they had another choice.

Instead of his upcoming interview, his mind twisted and tangled around the question of Caitlin - god, he didn't even know her last name.

She'd been a scientist. Working at one of the top biomedical research labs in the state. Rubbing shoulders with Ray Palmer. And she'd been engaged. But not anymore.

How had she gotten here?

FINIS


End file.
